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PNS Daily Newscast - February 22, 2019

North Carolina will hold a new election to fill the final disputed seat in the U.S. House. Also. on our Friday rundown: Baltimore sues Monsanto and others for polluting city waterways. Plus, a public lands program moves towards permanent status.

Study Says Faulty Claims Behind Plans to Revoke Net Neutrality

The FCC is accepting public comments on its plan to revoke net-neutrality protections through July 17. (Getty Images)

July 13, 2017

SALT LAKE CITY – As the Federal Communications Commission takes steps to reverse net neutrality, a term for a free and open Internet, researchers say a key assumption for the move does not hold water.

In his argument to revisit the Obama-era rule, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai cited a paper published in an academic journal that maintained the agency had failed to consider the economic impacts on industry.

But Jefferson Pooley, co-author of a new study published in the same International Journal for Communication, says Pai's position is based on a paper riddled with factual errors and unsubstantiated claims.

"We showed that this core claim was incorrect, that, in fact, economists had been perhaps more active in coming up with the net neutrality rules than ever before," Pooley states.

Pooley's team also found that the article cited by Pai was paid for by CALinnovates, a PR group that specializes in promoting policy for AT and T, an Internet service provider that Pooley says could benefit if open Internet rules are reversed.

Proponents of rolling back net neutrality say regulating ISPs as a utility hampers innovation and investment.

Pooley maintains the failure to disclose industry funding amounts to "information laundering," making it possible for the FCC chairman to cite an academic publication without any trace of AT and T's fingerprints.

He says it's important for the public, and public officials, to know whose interests are behind research.

"We would probably dismiss a claim that AT and T made directly against net neutrality, since they stand to gain financially,” Pooley states. “So instead of making the argument directly, they funded academics who published an article in an academic journal."

Pooley adds that CALinnovates threatened legal action against the journal and the University of Southern California, its host, unless material involving the firm was removed.

The FCC is accepting public comments on its plan, called "Restoring Internet Freedom," through Monday at www.fcc.gov.